Value of HE4 Combined with Cancer Antigen 125 in the Diagnosis of Endometrial Cancer.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinical significance of human epididymal secretory protein E4 (HE4) in combination with cancer antigen 125 (CA125) in the diagnosis of endometrial cancer.

METHODS: One hundred and fifty patients with endometrial cancer who were admitted to Binzhou People's Hospital, Shandong, China, between June 2013 and July 2014, were enrolled and set as an endometrial cancer group; another one hundred patients with benign uterine diseases and one hundred healthy females were also enrolled. The serum was collected from the subjects for the detection of HE4 level. The level of CA125 was detected using electrochemiluminescence assay (ELISA). Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn to analyze the cutoff points of HE4 and CA125 levels for the diagnosis of endometrial cancer. The diagnostic efficacy based on the detection of the two indexes separately and jointly was evaluated.

RESULTS: The area under curve (AUC) for diagnosis of endometrial cancer based on HE4 was superior to that based on CA125 (0.819 vs 0.757). The optimal diagnosis cutoff point of HE4 and CA125 on the ROC curves was 92.21 pmol/L and 31.32KU/L, respectively. The sensitivity, Youden index, coincidence rate and negative predicted value of diagnosing endometrial cancer with HE4 in combination with CA125 (73.2%, 0.641, 83.5% and 83.4%) were significantly higher than those of diagnosing endometrial cancer with the two indexes separately. The ROC-AUC value of serum HE4 and CA125 was 0.749 and 0.528 respectively, much lower than that of HE4 in combination with CA125 (0.794; P<0.05).

CONCLUSION: Serum HE4 and CA125 are the ideal marker combination for the diagnosis of endometrial cancer. HE4 combined with CA125 is beneficial to the diagnosis of endometrial cancer; hence it is worth promotion in clinical practice.